LCHS Alumni Xmas Party Dec. 30
By Peter Dy (Batch '66)

The LCHS Alumni Association annual get-together and Christmas party is scheduled on Dec. 30, at the LCHS auditorium.  This was announced by President Dy Sio Te, in a meeting of alumni officers last Nov. 13 at the Oasis Ice Cream Parlor, Iligan City.

The affair promises to be an evening of fellowship, parlor games, dinner, and a host of raffle prizes at stake.  There will be no assessment for alumni members.  Raffles tickets will be sold at P100 apiece.

At the same meeting, the matter of bona fide members was also discussed.  Considered bona fide members of the LCHS Alumni Association are those who have registered and paid their life-time membership fee of  P210.  Only bona fide members shall be eligible for recognition, benefits or privileges that may be granted by the Association. It was also proposed that a grand alumni homecoming be held in the year 2000.  It was noted that the annual get-together, set every year-end, does not seem too convenient for out-of-town alumni to travel to Iligan for the occasion.  The month of July in the year 2000 has been suggested for the grand reunion.  The matter will be up for further deliberations in subsequent meetings.

Mass Distribution of Spectrum Proposed

If plans don't miscarry, more LCHS alumni may soon be able to read the Spectrum.  At a recent meeting of the LCHS alumni officers, Peter Dy (Batch '66), speaking for the Spectrum, cited the need for the association to render its assistance in the reproduction and distribution of the Spectrum to alumni who have no Internet access.

As it is, circulation of the Spectrum is limited to alumni with Internet connections, who, in turn, have to print out hard copies themselves to share with other alumni.  Taking note of this strenuous set-up, the association agreed in principle to devise a practicable system to help in the distribution of the newsletter.  One of the plans is to designate one member each week to take charge of reproducing the week's issue, by way of sponsorship, for mass circulation among alumni in Iligan.

LCHS Now Has 27 Teachers
By Igdono Caracho (Batch '66) and Alicia Cu-Go (Batch '79)

There are currently 27 teachers in the faculty, and 6 others manning the administrative staff of LCHS.  Comprising the English department faculty are: Ma. Sarah Ocampo, Remy Alibanggo, Rosalia Mejino, Zyphrine Maata, Leonor Tabasa, Annabelle Repliza, Cherylin Paquingan, Elizabeth David, Windel Villastique, Sol Edwin Diaz, Lorena Jasma, Normita Q. Alivio, Arnel Huilar, Joel Tiquel, Erma Darunday, and Sun Lay Dy.

The Chinese department faculty is composed of: Eva Khey, Conchita Cabanlit, Evangeline Chiu, Perfecta Uy, Susan Gatchalian, Nida Tejada, Sun Lay Dy, William Kong, Aurora Sy, Chen Yu Lian, Zhu Li Hua, and Yang Yu Qun.  Manning the administrative staff are Aida Acuba, Enuncia Nadayag, Edgar Asok, Nilda Dagondon, Rose Acuba, and Ma. Eleanor Tajoda.

Franklin Tan Wins Golf Tourney

LCHS alumnus Frankie Tan won the championship in a golf tournament at the Golf and Country Club of Iligan City last Nov. 16.  He went home with a grand trophy and a refrigerator as prizes. He is the son of Engr. Calixto Tan.  Another alumnus, Joseph "Kangkang" Siao, won a free one-month subscription to the Southern Cable TV in the raffle draws.  The tournament was sponsored by the Maratel, among others.
 

Your article about aspiring youths from LCHS was so exciting.  As I read the lines, I can vividly and clearly recall the sites, activities and our intentions in those days.  Gone were those days and the memoirs but in our minds they still linger on.

Alex Rodriguez, M.D. (Batch '65), Florida, U.S.A.

Spectrum in Iligan
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 19:44:48 +0800
From: brendon@mail.usc.edu.ph

Your newsletter is conquering Iligan City.  I went to Iligan last semester and I saw your newsletter there.  Well, just checking if your connection to the Internet is ok.  I hope so.

Brendon Vy Co, University of San Carlos, Cebu, Philippines
 

Regrettably, I'm tacked in Mrs. Crisanta Alcover-Ayson's "amnesia zone".  She exuberantly peppered her choiced students with a generous dash of heavenly adjectives and a glow of scholarly kinship.  Yet, inadvertently, she overlooked her secondary favorites: the short (a vulgar modifier in dwarfs' vernacular) aimless teens and self-centered twits.  No doubt, given another Spectrum page to squeeze arresting grandeur out of her LCHS saga, my initials will resurface with a splash.  How could a biology instructor disremember a greenhorn who matched amoeba with fruit fly and, with uncontained boyish delight, verified if beriberi was a variation of boogie.  Really, a genuine applause to the teacher who initially tweaked my juvenile curiosity about living forms and who absolved a rookie's misstep in classifying protoplasm under solar system.  Ma'am, with an umbilical cord stretched this far from home, I can only underscore a fragment of your winning moments: Your cellular physiology lectures implanted a glint of sheer will in my fervent quest for a M.D. title after my surname.  Such discerning wisdom and thoughtful insight should enhance your perennial appeal and propel your inner strength to shimmering heights, as good as an angel full of pie.

Furthermore, I relished the untold joys of this Dr. Zhivago fantasy, especially when this seemingly arduous academic vocation materialized without the reflexive motor skills that I refined in your semestral exams: the coded references in tiny papers and fine prints, humidified by trembling palms and poked with calculated caution.

Punch in the tasty stuffing.  Blend the gravy.  Brown the plump bird. The hungry hippos (my boys) are b-a-c-k!  And pumped-up for a savory burp and a ferocious assault to the factory outlets' giveaway counters with their plastic money.
 

Having been accustomed to working seven days a week the whole year back in the Philippines, I was at first not so appreciative of the two days rest every weekend.  I just could not grasp the happy faces of my co-workers who would exclaim: "Thank God it's Friday!" and would bid me: "Have a nice weekend."  After a few months with a routine job from Monday to Friday, I also became a convert of the "weekend culture."

Saturdays and Sundays became the days when we spent time with friends and relatives and to spend the money we earned from Monday to Friday.  Saturday evenings are mostly reserved for parties while Sunday noons are for picnics.  Shopping is usually done during Thursday evening when all the shops are open till around 10PM.

When I first arrived here, shops were only open till 5PM Monday to Friday, except Thursday when we had this late night shopping.  On Saturdays no shops were open after 2PM.  And my money was safe in my pocket during Sundays.  Even during Christmas seasons, the shopping malls and the big chain-stores had to negotiate and bargain with the labor unions to allow their workers to be on duty during weekends prior to Christmas.  What we got were only two weekends of extra shopping time at the most.

However, everything has changed now.  Weekends are now ordinary trading days.  Shopping malls are now open seven days a week the whole year through, with one big chain of supermarkets that never closes. They are open 24 hours!  This is the result of the pressure from the tourist industry and the competition of the gasoline stations, which also carried many grocery items which were taking the business away from the supermarkets when they were closed.

Until a few years ago, I could go to our fish market here during weekends and pick up tuna fish-heads for free.  My guests and friends just loved the pangga.  But now the fish traders know better.  They now sell the tuna heads as well.

Most of the Australian holidays are not observed on permanent dates, such as Labor Day, Queen's Birthday and others.  The government have formulated many holidays to fall on a certain Monday of a particular month in order to have a long weekend.  Most of the people here would travel to country areas for camping and other outing activities, and many venues are even booked a year before.

Australia Day, which falls on January 26 to mark the first landing of the first fleet from England with Governor Phillip in 1788, is not even celebrated nationwide on the same day. Other states still insist to marking it on the nearest Monday in order to make it another long weekend.  As a result, a former state Premier stated that Australia is a land of the long weekend!

During the Holy week, we here in Australia do not consider Maundy Thursday as a public holiday, instead we have Easter Monday as an additional rest day.  It is the Monday after Easter Sunday.

December 26 here is always a holiday.  It is called "Boxing Day."  I was at first puzzled about this peculiar day.  Are Australians such boxing sport fanatics that they have a holiday for it? My curiosity was later satisfied when I learned that this is a big clean-up day for every home the day after Christmas.  Time to take away the numerous gifts one received from Santa Claus and the Christmas tree and other decorations.  In short, this is the day Australians put these things into the box.  Thus the name.  For here, Christmas season ends on December 25.  But many Filipinos still wait till the Feast of the Three Kings before they take away their Christmas trappings at home.  In my case, I sometimes even wait till the Chinese Lunar New Year!
 

School year 1965-1966 opened on June 7, 1965, Monday, at Lanao Chinese High School located at Roosevelt Extension, Iligan City.  I was in my first day of my first year high school, feeling excited to be in the first step of the secondary course, being together again with my classmates after the summer vacation, sharing experiences, etc.  But most of all, it was the beginning of another chapter in my schooling, this time in long khaki pants with jacket type white short sleeves uniform.  And our girl classmates were in their navy blue skirt and white blouse, no longer clad in their H-jumper uniforms.

Our subjects in first year were: Grammar and Composition, Literature with Character Education, Pilipino, World History, Algebra, General Science, Health and P.E.  And who were handling these subjects then?  Well, there was Miss Chona Serrato, Miss Catalina Daan, Mr. Gener, Miss Lourdes de la Cruz, Miss Crisanta Alcover, and of course our beloved class adviser, Mr. Julian Narciso.  P.E. was not really my favorite subject, neither was recess time.  But General Science was.  This particular subject really caught my fancy.  And I just loved this subject.  Must be a prelude to what was to transpire in the years that followed.

Fast forward.  School year 1966-l967.  I was now in my second year high school.  Our subjects included: Grammar, Literature, and Character Education all in one; Pilipino, General Science, Geometry, U.S. History, Oriental History, Philippine History and Government, Health and P.E.  Our teachers were: Miss Chona Serrato, Miss Teresita Lim, Miss Teresita Maulas who was our class adviser, Miss Collantes, and Mr. Gener.

My last year in LCHS was in the school year 1967-l968 when I was in my third year.  This was the year Campus Keepers (the LCHS school organ) was born.  Our subjects were: Literature and Composition, Pilipino, Biology, Applied Arithmetic, Advance Algebra, Philippine Social Life, Economics, Health and P.E., and Music.  Our teachers included: Miss Nonela Wong, as our class adviser; Miss Crisanta Alcover, Mr. Gener.  I got an A flat in my conduct from first to third year, which means that I was indeed a good boy.  Hehehe!

As I sit down in my study table, the memories of those teachers we had in high school keep coming and flashing back, some vividly, some blurry as years pass by, with the gliding years matching with some of the physical decrescendos as one becomes a midlifer.  But whether vivid or blurred, still the memories linger like no other.  And they will forever be there for the keeping.  I wonder where they are now.  If I am 45-going-46, they must be 60 or over!  So, to all my high school mentors: Thank you once again for being part of what I am today.  Thank you for the memories...

"The ultimate measure of a man," said Martin Luther King, "is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

One person I knew who measured up to M. L. King's maxim is LCHS alumnus Ong Ching An, a.k.a. Robert Dy (Batch '63). Hym-Hym, as he was known to everybody, was not only content in meeting challenges, he went out of his way to meet the bull by the horn.

As a family friend and neighbor, I knew Hym-Hym since I was a kid.  Even at that early age I already had the impression that he was a character born with a high spirit of tenacity.

I was once playing at the public plaza with his younger brother Mike when we were harassed by a bunch of street bullies.  When Hym-Hym got wind of this he rushed to the plaza to seek out the bullies and engaged them in a fistfight all by himself.  How he did it with his lanky built I couldn't remember.  But I remember the bullies scampered away from him after that.

Hym-Hym was forever in search of new conquests.   Through the years he had continued to amaze me with his obsession with bold ideas and exploits.   Once after seeing that I still failed to grasp the principle of the kaleidoscope even after all his explanation, he proceeded to form one from cut-out cardboard and shards of broken glass to demonstrate his point.

As he grew older, his fascination with theories and strategies grew deeper.  And with it, his capacity for mental analysis became even more profound.  He became absorbed in the game of chess, which he once described to me as "a game of strategy, foresight and conquests."  He poured himself in volumes of chess books and probed into every move of the grandmasters.  In time he became an astute player respected by chess veterans.

As enormous as his passion for chess was his readiness to share his discoveries with friends.  From him I learned to read chess moves and in the process also picked up a few lessons from him. He also took me along in his chess tournaments, where he beat the best players in Iligan.  Even then he was never contented with his triumphs.  He once stretched his mental prowess to the limits by playing blindfolded against a chess champion from Cagayan de Oro.  It was an unprecedented feat.  He won hands down, or rather, eyes closed.

His thirst for new conquests was unquenchable.  He continually set himself out to explore many other things that would have befuddled the ordinary mind.  He often applied unconventional approaches when he taught at LCHS in the mid-60s.  His students fondly remember him for having reintroduced scouting and camping in LCHS.  The school's scouting facilities, which had remained idle for years, were refurbished by him.  Using these camping implements, he opened the doors to his students to new discoveries in the great outdoors.

He was fascinated with magic and often gate-crashed carnival backrooms to learn from the professional wizards. He analyzed the cosmic configuration and toyed around with the laws of physics.  Using his mathematical prowess, he developed his own equation of beating the odds at the casinos. In pursuit of his business sidelines, he buried himself in the roller-coaster economics of the stock market.  No single challenge or risk, however enormous, ever deterred the man from his pursuit.

Surprisingly, all his feats and breakthroughs seemed insignificant to him compared to what he believed he could still have attained. Down to the last few days of his life, he remained undaunted, unfazed, undeterred.  When he fell ill to cancer, he asked his kid brother Santi, "Why does this have to happen to me when I'm just about to make my major break?"

Yet even then he remained stoppable.  Seconds before he passed away in 1989, as the doctor removed the oxygen mouthpiece for replacement, he still persisted to carry on.  "Not yet," he told the doctor. "Give me one more breath."